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So I’ve been trying to get back to this blog and I’ve started watching a handful of web series only to decide they weren’t worth reviewing. Yes, some things are THAT bad.
But I finally have a show I want to write about and it’s simply divine (yeah I hate myself a little right now).

Head’s up – no way can I avoid spoilers on this puppy. You’ve been warned.

Divine is the name of an earthbound angel who’s superheroing it up against demons that prey on regular humans. Simple concept and I’ve seen it a variety of times before. The strength of this show is in the execution, from plot structure to acting to camera work.

The producers of the show have stated they want it to be watchable in any order. I have to admit they’ve done a pretty good job of that. You can jump in on any episode and move on to any other. We’ve seen non linear narratives a lot, from Pulp Fiction to Memento to Last Year at Marienbad (gotcha with that one, didn’t I?). But integrating the concept into a web series format is bringing it to a new level, as the audience can choose the order of the nonlinearness (I know that’s not a word). It wouldn’t work for every concept, but here it’s definitely part of the selling point.

So there’s these two men of the cloth working at a mission where our avenging angel sweeps the floor and sleeps in a spare room. The young priest, Father Christopher, is there due to a crisis of conscience (involving the death of someone he wanted to help) and a relocating from his superiors. He showed up in a cab driven by a sort of symbolic Christ figure only to discover he has to help out in healing rituals for Divine, who comes in from a beating. Also there used to be another priest (played by Misha Collins of Supernatural) but something really bad happened to him. Oh, and a catholic school girl, demon baby, a Minotaur & what appears to be Cardinal Richelieu carrying a falcon. Because: Reasons I’d know if I read more of the bible (I doubt that).

Everything clear now? Good. That’s as clear as it gets. I’m not knocking the mystery. I’m into it, they got me hooked and I hope next season is coming. Although, judging by their indiegogo campaign, it might be a while until they have the funding they want. While the kickstarter campaign for the first season was way successful, the second season’s indiegogo didn’t turn out so well.

Canada based Maple Blood Productions packages this up with stunts, effects, solid camera work and sleek editing. It’s made by pros who know what they’re doing. And the effects, while okay by motion pictures standards, stand up against any of my Sy Fy channel guilty pleasures (Lost Girl is my favorite, by the way). In fact, the effects on Divine are much better than many television shows I’ve seen.

The pacing of the show could be more streamlined and compacted. The fight sequences are great but not so awesome as to be so long, proportionate to the episodes. There’s a similar problem with heavy dialogue scenes. I find myself sitting through an extra minute or two of dialogue after I got the point. This is also due to the fact that the dialogue is written extremely on the nose. At times it’s over-obvious. I find it odd they trust a smart audience to follow the show’s structure but not in the writing of the lines. However, maybe that’s appropriate for the audience that would be seeking this sort of show out. As I mentioned, it recalls some of the better Sy Fy series I’ve enjoyed and the writing on that stuff is certainly groan-worthy. I imagine it’s to keep the ADD preteen boys in the loop, or they’ll miss something.

The biggest mystery for me is Asian Catholic Schoolgirl Cosplayer (her name is Jin, actually). There’s at least a hint to everyone else’s past or motivations. I have no idea how she fits in, other than eye candy and sarcasm. Hopefully season two will solve that mystery first, cause she’s not doing much for me at the moment. In fact, she has the weakest delivery of anyone in Divine. I can’t tell if she’s sarcastic, genuine, or just reading lines off a cue card.

A sort of off – topic pet peeve. Blood on the face. This happens in a lot of horror and action films I’ve seen. In Ep 4 Deacon Jim and Father Christopher have just performed a ritual over a bloody Divine, during which they got a lot of blood on them. Ok, blood happens. But why aren’t they wiping their faces off through their entire conversation in the Holy Locker Room? This drives me crazy, it’s one of those filmmaking conventions that pull me out of the story cause all I can think is “I don’t know a damn person who wouldn’t be wiping the blood off their face and out of their mouth the first chance they got.” I get that it’s thought of as symbolic, but 9 times out of 10 it looks contrived and silly to me. Had the same problem with Bite Me that I wrote about in my first review. I just didn’t bring it up at the time.

In the end, I really enjoyed this show. It’s not perfect, and judging by the behind the scenes clips (check em out. wire stunts! bull head make up!) the creators are really dedicated and good at what they do. I also want to mention that the score is tight and well tuned into the pacing of the show.

I’d recommend it. Highly. Hell, watch it in any order. It’s better than alot of whatever’s on your TIVO. I’d say go buy a t-shirt and give them some support, but their online shop doesn’t seem to be working. I know this cause I was going to toss them $20 or so clams for a t-shirt. Well, let’s hope we see more angel on demon violence sometime soon.

(Fun fact: I just looked up the correct spelling of t-shirt. Allegedly, there isn’t one.)

Favorite Parts

Ep 02 • Demon Momma beats the crap out of street gang. I was rooting for her in the fight with Divine.

Ep 03 • Foul mouthed cabby driving the priest. Even the heavy handed JC visual reference at the end doesn’t ruin it for me. In fact, if Christ came back as a foul mouthed Eastern European cabby, I’d love to see the reaction of the Religious Right.

Ep 03 • Expository phone conversation Father Christopher has with his mother. Too long, too on the nose, and a phone call nestled in a flashback? Sloppy storytelling. He could have flashed back to the actual event he’s telling her about. This was just to do shots of him cutting up fish (hey! can we get a few more metaphors in here?!).

Ep 05 • Chemistry between Divine and Jin. I want some buddy/buddy chemistry between them. His reactions to her bland delivery seem forced.

Ep 06 • Fine episode, but not a good way to end a season, in my opinion. Feels like rising action, rather than a cliff hanger or ending on some high energy.

Comic Book Recommendation (since that’s what I’ve been doing anyway, might as well give it a name).

Rex Mundi. Written by Arvid Nelson. Fantastic, epic, alternate history graphic novel. Best way to describe the plot and setting is a non-sucky version of the Da Vinci Code set in a 1930s France where magic exists and the Church is still a huge political power.

Some Web Series PLUGS Follow Up to Last Post

After my review of Hollywood Girl and the follow up discussion with Courtney Zito in the comments section of this blog, I watched the latest episode. She’s definitely trying to focus the show and improve it. S2•Ep2 is here.

More Canadian Action

You like teh action? You should be watching CLUTCH. I would review it, but I can’t. I consider the creators friends of mine and am working on a future project with them. So obviously, there’s a bias in anything I’d say. So I’m just plugging it. Go watch their show! It’s worth your time.
That’s it for now, folks. Hopefully someone reads this and comes back for more. Even more hopefully I will get back here sooner next time.

On May 30th I directed a music video for Will Eastman’s remix of “So Damn High” by Ruby Isle. A former production student of mine, Chris Burke came along and shot some behind the scenes footage he cut into this video. It’s being used as a teaser before we launch the music video next week with Kindercore Records. It was a good day… but effin long. Real long. I believe I had time to only consume coffee and complimentary drinks from 7 AM until 5PM. And watching my closing interview… you can tell!

Good practice in my recent decision to get over seeing myself on video. I hate it. I need to get more comfortable with it.

so…. long story short… two years ago i was talking with a friend who does a regular dj night at my standard waterin’ hole (BLISS and the Black Cat, respectively). i’d been doing video graphics for museum stuff for years and we thought ‘it’d be awesome to add projectionto the dj night!’ but no projector available and i dont know if you know but that shizz is expensive to buy or rent or rent to own or lease or make or carve out of stone.

so we chalked it up to a little idea that maybe would never happen.

fast forward a couple months and observe a projector falling into my lap. well whattaya know!

so i started making dvds of motion graphics that i was just messing around with and running it on a loop. then i found out there was a thing called a VJ! and people were doing live video mixing out there in the world! and wow, there’s like alot of those people and software and books and a documentary or two. isn’t it interesting that the world is always a little bigger than you think it is? always. never forget that.

got inexpensive software (we’ll say it’s intro level. good, solid, affordable, simple – i have no real complaints. check it out if you want to get into this – AV Mixer Pro), and started to do it live.

found online VJ sites and started participating uploading and downloading clips. then one day i got an email – a clip i put on VJ Vaults was a finalist in a contest! no kidding? really? well, didn’t i just fall into something. so it was fifth place out of about 1200 submissions. thanks internet, i didnt even know i was good at this or i was entered into a contest. i still feel like i’m just starting out at this. i’ve done a few cool events and i love doing bliss every month. but i’m starting to realize that if i put a little legwork and time into it maybe this would be more of a viable endeavor than just a hobby.

so this blogging thing…. i’ll give it a try. i’m going to use this blog as a mix of a portfolio and a venue for ranting (i guess that goes without saying, but i need to type something here to start off with).

at the moment i’m blogging from one of the only spots in scranton where i enjoy myself. Northern Lights. while it’s not my ‘type’ of coffeehouse it is a good solid coffeehouse with a mix of clientele and decent beverages. right now i wish they served soup.

but really that’s not an interesting blog, is it? i should say something stupdendously engaging so that the 3 people who might read this will not feel like their time was wasted.

it’s march of 2009 and i’m 32 years old. i just figured out what i want to be when i grow up…. an astronaut! but i’m too old for that, so i’ll be a filmmaker instead. if you read my ‘about’ page, you know some things about me already. i do VJing (live video mixing at events) and i’ve produced/directed an independent (innacurate term – MICROBUDGET would be more accurate) feature film. it’s currently being edited by a long time friend and collaborator, Bert. also, that i’m a professor at American University. i am 32 years old and on paper i sound like i figured some things out. i like reading things i’ve written about myself, because it reminds me that i am not just the sum of the critiques i’ve given recently + alot of time on my couch watching pictures moving around a screen sometimes delivered to me by over priced satellite tv. i’m meeting the producer of my last feature in a few minutes. it’s a rainy night. i’m hoping that we get into one of those great conversations that make you feel like you can DO something. the moments when potential is all there is and you havent started to hammer and chisel the idea until you’re left with what’s really possible and you have to make it work and you hope it doesnt suck and god bless Bert if he can make it come to life.